Sub-domain or new domain for new location
-
I have a small law firm in Dallas, TX. I will be moving to Austin, TX in the next 2 years. My website is doing great here in Dallas, but I have focused on keyword phrases that include the word "Dallas." I would like to leave my current website as is and maintain a Dallas office to keep the business flowing from this website.
I am trying to determine the best way to get Austin business from a 2nd website. I know I will need new content that includes the use of the word "Austin". My question is:
Should I put the new content on (1) a subdomain (i.e. austin.copplaw.com) or (2) a new domain (i.e. copplawfirm.com). I really want to be a player for the google local search results in both cities. I can use a different name for my law firm in Austin, if necessary.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated!
Regards,
Zac
-
Hi Zac,
As you are a single company, I would recommend going with a single website with unique pages for your different offices. Google completely understands that law firms and other local businesses have more than one office and as you are presumably offering the same services in both Austin and Dallas, I don't really see the need for a different website.
What will be important is that you have a unique local phone number as well as a unique physical street address for the new location so that you can full participate in the creation of local listings for your new office and not let the Austin location detract from the Dallas one or get 'confused' with it.
From all I have read, there is no difference (rankingwise) between this approach:
and
I prefer the latter, personally, but you can go either way without trouble. I think you will need to do some minor re-optimization of core pages of your website to cover that you have 2 locations and then will need to work on city landing pages. Let me link to a piece I recently wrote on this topic, for situations just like yours:
The Nitty Gritty Of City Landing Pages For Local Businesses
http://www.solaswebdesign.net/wordpress/?p=1403
Can you go with a new website instead of building out your current site? Certainly, but I prefer the latter because it is:
-
Easier to manage
-
You don't have to rebuild the wheel - you've already built it
-
You need have no worries about publishing duplicate content on a second site
-
By presenting CoppLaw.com as a single entity with multiple offices, you will be presenting your business authentically as an impressive, growing law firm with the clout to operate 2 locations.
Hope this helps!
-
-
I don't have much knowledge in Local Search (that should be my next plan. Thank you) but I believe you simply have to fill out all the information on each of your local listings. Furthermore, like getting backlinks for website is important, it is also important for local search. When people link to your website, it is important for them to include a location within the anchor text or around the link for co-citation. Witht that, it should help with local search.
Well, I believe having subdomains or folders will be better because you will probably have more backlinks than creating 2 separate site. As i mentioned above, backlinks also plays a role in Local Search.
-
I am not opposed the additional work (I actually like it). Is one alternative better for local results than the other?
-
Hi Zac,
Since your initial website has mainly content on Dallas, i find it hard to incorporate Austin in there unless you change up all your content. If you have a generic website, I would recommend either using subdomain or folders to sepearte each location. Such as dallas.copplaw.com austin.copplaw.com or copplaw.com/dalls and etc. But that doesn't seems to work.
Since you are moving and having another location, I might create a 2nd website. This option is definitely not the best approach since you will have to spend more time optimizing both websites and build links for both website. Basically more website = more work.
If possible, you can rework the content on the main website to make it more generic instead of simply targetting one location. Then use location subdomain or folder. I find this to be the best approach.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Many New Urls at once
Hi, I have about 5,000 new URLs to publish. For SEO/Google - Should I publish them gradually, or all at once is fine? *By the way - all these URLs were already indexed in the past, but then redirected. Cheers,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | viatrading10 -
Redirect domain or keep separate domains in each country?
Hi all Hoping this might be something that can be answered given the number of variables 🙂
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | IsaCleanse
My main site is www.isacleanse.com.au (Obviously targeted to Australian Market) and also www.isacleanse.co.nz targeted to NZ. The main Keywords im targeting are 'Isagenix' for both and also Isagenix Australia, Isagenix Perth, Sydney (Australian cities) and Isagenix NZ, Isagenix New Zealand, Isagenix Auckland etc.. for NZ The Australian site gets a lot more traffic and Australian market gets a lot more searches - I also have a section www.isacleanse.com.au/isagenix-new-zealand/ on the Australian site. The question is am I best off redirrecting the .co.nz domain completley to the Australian Domain to give it extra SEO Juice?0 -
Client wants a seperate .tv domain for their media/videos instead of a subdomain/subfolder. What is the best way to pass of link equity to a new domain?
We have a client that wants to place their video content on a .tv tld instead of a subfolder/subdomain in their .com website. They believe that the .tv domain will better represent the media experience of their business. We can understand this client's position however we are concerned about their .tv domain will lose out on the link equity if it were no longer placed in the .com's subdomain/subfolder. Here are our questions: 1. What would be the best way to pass of link equity from .com website to a new .tv domain? Should we just have a video link on the .com website that 301 directs to the new .tv domain? 2. Is there any SEO benefit of having a .tv domain for Google Video queries or even Youtube? 3. Is there any long term value of having two different websites? For link equity purposes we understand that it would be better if everything was in a .com. However is a .tv domain ideal for a better representation of their media content? We appreciate any feedback.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RosemaryB0 -
Unique domains vs. single domain for UGC sites?
Working on a client project - a UGC community that has a DTC model as well as a white label model. Is it categorically better to have them all under the same domain? Trying to figure which is better: XXX,XXX pages on one site vs. A smaller XXX,XXX pages on one site and XX,XXX pages on 10-20 other sites all pointing to the primary site. The thinking on the second was that those domains would likely achieve high DA as well as the primary, and would passing their value to the primary. Thoughts? Any other considerations we should be thinking about?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | intentionally0 -
Redirect ruined domain to new domain without passing link juice
A new client has a domain which has been hammered by bad links, updates etc and it's basically on its arse because of previous SEO guys. They have various domains for their business (brand.com, brand.co.uk) and want to use a fresh domain and take it from there. Their current domain is brand.com (the ruined one). They're not bothered about the rankings for brand.com but they want to redirect brand.com to brand.co.uk so that previous clients can find them easily. Would a 302 redirect work for this? I don't want to set up a 301 redirect as I don't want any of the crappy links pointing across. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jasonwdexter0 -
Do inbound links pass onto new domain if redirected?
If I set up a website on a new domain and have the old domain 301 redirected to the new domain, do the links pointing to the old site impact the new site?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | priceseo0 -
Purchased a high ranking domain and want to transfer my site to the new domain
I recently purchased a highly ranked domain. The link profile is very good and I don't want to lose to many links however I want to transfer my site to that domain. What is the best way of doing this without losing the current rank on search engines? Also how much does the transfer of registrar information impact my SEO?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ydop0 -
Exact match domain or root domain for speedy SEO?
I am doing SEO for a website that has constantly rotating and only temporarily pertinent subjects on it. Let's say these information and subject cycles go for about 6 months. Assuming this would it be more effective to optimize exact match domains for each 6 month cycle or make a main domain with a few of the keywords and just target a page for each roaming subject? Advantage of the subject is I get domain authority to feed off of, advantage of the exact match is, of course exact match domains are a powerful tool to rank highly and it is only a medium competitive market, usually about 40 domain and page authority. What do you guys think? Do you have any techniques to dominate temporary and rotating markets?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MarloSchneider0